Your Violent Hearbeat
by Ms.Dawes
Summary: AU human universe, Klaroline. Klaus is the boss Caroline works for and secretly covets. Damon Salvatore throws her a curve ball when she refuses to go out on a date with him. One shot. R&R!


**Your violent heartbeat**

**Summary: AU **human universe – Caroline works for Nicklaus Miakaelson as his secretary and tries her best not to give into any office politics or gossip, but Damon Salvatore gives her some food for thought about her boss, something that almost turns her steady working life upside down.** One shot. **

Disclaimer: don't own any of the VD characters.

She's mad right now. There is no other way to describe why her heart won't stop slamming inside her ribs as violently as it was. Damon Salvatore may be a sleazy bastard, but he was also a sleazy bastard who was known to ruin a good day with tattling all those damaging truths that should be left alone. Caroline generally avoided his brand of venom as much as she could because dealing with vicious gossip in the workplace just sets back her productivity a few notches; something she was absolutely not okay with. Organised productivity at work was her brand, it was her damn calling! Now, she found herself avoiding the ringing phone on her desk because of some negative intentioned crap Damon had thrown at her as bait. It could be the 3 o'clock her boss, Nicklaus Mikaleson might have been waiting for. Oh Screw it, she was not in the mood!

Today was just one of those days...the air-conditioning was not fully functional and it was the hottest day of summer. Earlier, she'd had to literally wipe the sweat from her forehead as she sipped on some ice tea and pretended to look through email with a squinting expression that said 'leave me alone'. Except, Damon decided he just had to ask her out for the tenth time this month, ignoring her eye rolling, shoulder shrugging, quite mumbling, and even her direct refusal hadn't deterred him from sitting on her desk and watching her with piercing attention. Every woman in the office found Damon Salvatore charming, everyone except her, and this was painfully obvious to his pride.

Why else would he tell her such an awful thing?

'You know that Boss you carry a silent torch for Barbie? He only hired you because you look like his dead wife. Everyone knows it.' At her look of disbelief, he leaned in over her desk to twist the knife further in her heart, 'I heard he hires blonde hookers who look eerily like you, almost every two weeks, when he's away on those business meetings you set up for him so lovingly.' She had only managed to gape after him, as he grinned and left her with her thoughts coiling and uncoiling around this information.

She was still replaying his obscene words inwardly after an hour, while the two phones on her desk, rang off the hook. It was really, only her indignation over Damon's assumption of her carrying the torch for Nicklaus Mikaleson that kept her from sinking into her nice new, revolving, leather seat. She's worked for Mikaelson enterprises for two years now, and has never made an assertion to any of her female or male co-workers of her secret crush on handsome CEO of the company. The fact that someone like Damon could read her secret longing to be more than the CEO's secretary bothered her far less than what he had revealed to her about her boss. It was as if he were telling her, Nicklaus kept her around because of her face and nothing else. Her hard work was swept under the company two year old monotonous looking carpet, declaring her nothing more than another blonde in heels, tromping about the building, trying to look important.

As much as she tried to keep herself from believing Damon's cruel jab, she had an inadvertent moment where she remembered her boss watching her intently a few days ago, almost sadly, as is looking at her hurt his very soul. Was that what Damon was talking about? Was it true? Was she just a Xerox of his dead wife, he liked having around to reminisce about old times?

* * *

><p>In the two years she had worked for him, she has never seen a picture of his wife, and no one else in the office ever really remarked that she resembled the late Mrs. Mikaelson. But then she recalled even Elijah Mikaelson, the older brother and managing director of the company, had been momentarily surprised and silent, until he recovered his composure and greeted her courteously as Nicklaus's go-to girl the first time he met her at a company dinner. Had there been gossip around the office the first time she joined the company? She hadn't really paid much attention, but there was one thing that somewhat made Damon's account true; Two years ago, when she had landed the job interview for an executive office admin in Mikaelson enterprises, the recruiter had almost definitely told her that she might be rejected. Caroline had found this, suspicious enough when the human resources woman told her 'it's nothing personal dear, the Boss just doesn't warm up to anyone after his wife died, he fires them the minute they get the coffee wrong. I'm sorry; I'm just preparing you for the worst.' She smiled slightly at the memory of how she had privately laughed at human resources when in the first year of her job, Nicklaus did not so much as raise his voice with her when she fetched him the wrong project files two times in a row.<p>

She had always thought it was her incredible work ethic and her dazzling smile, which brought out the hidden warmth in the man. And now that illusion was shattered by what Damon had told her. It was ridiculous and yet it coincided so well with the way he's treated her for two years. Warm and kindly; he was firm with her when she made mistakes, but never as rude and threatening as he has known to have a reputation for with the rest of the company.

Caroline got off her chair and trudged a bit miserably up the stairs to his closed office whose windows were covered by half open blinds. She needed to know, right this minute, what Damon had said was a lie. She wasn't even sure of why. Was it so bad to be compared to a dead wife and be treated gently all year long? And what if he was keeping her at arm's length because of the very same reason? The hooker thing, she didn't even want to think about. There was a sharpened pencil still in her fingers; she threw it back in the general direction of her table, but it missed and landed in a potted plant by the water cooler. Let it grow a damn branch, she was going in to ask him!

* * *

><p>His office was slightly cooler. Maybe the air-conditioning was fine and it was just her increasingly rising blood pressure that was causing her to sweat. He was bent over an open file, with a pencil in one hand and the other massaging his forehead. He was stressed. Over the time she had picked up subtle signals of what he was feeling at a given moment and it helped her enormously when he wasn't in his best sharing moments. Caroline sighed quietly, the anger over being a replacement caricature of a dead wife seemed to easily evaporate seeing him like this; hair mussed, tie loose, and lips pursed in grim determination of continuing the task however bothersome it may be.<p>

Another memory of him especially concerned about her welfare brought her out of her own grim determination; last year, around Christmas, she'd gotten hit by a car while crossing the road to Macy's. It wasn't as deadly as it sounded. She only suffered a broken arm and a few stitches on the side of her forehead from where she had hit the pavement, nothing life threatening. He was the first one at the hospital, although he hadn't made his presence known, and she had been mostly hazy with the drugs running through her system, she remembered his face quietly pinched and sombre, like she had lost a limb or worse.

Had he been thinking about the wife he lost while he looked down on her pale form? Except, he called her name when he thought she couldn't hear him and softly caressed her cheek and asked her to return to him, 'I need you Caroline...' he had said reverently. How could she begrudge him for keeping her around even if she did remind him of his late wife? It's not as if he accidentally ever called her something other than Caroline, or tried to rouse sympathy from her over his misfortune.

And now she was standing in her kindly, tortured, Boss's office expecting a tantamount explanation over something Damon Salvatore had said to her in an attempt to make her feel foolish for turning him down. She was an idiot!

Before she could turn on her heel and leave quietly, Nicklaus looked up from his work and fixed a quirk of his full, crimson lips at her. 'I assume you're here to tell me I ought to stop burning the candle on both ends?'

Something like that, she mused silently. He put down his pencil and straightened in his chair, as if he would for someone that really mattered and when he rose to put on his suit jacket that lay casually draped over the shoulders of his dark, overstuffed chair, she saw the cufflinks she'd given to him last Christmas. They gave her a gentle glint of affection under the massive overhead lights and soothed her violent heart beat.

'Is my three o'clock here?'

Caroline sniffled quietly; trying to hide her suddenly overwhelmed emotions behind her eyes and went to straighten her Boss's crooked tie he had neglected to fix, leaving her palm against the smooth silk and the warmth behind it, a few seconds longer than necessary, barely missing the steady rhythm of his heart. She respectfully retracted her hands by her sides and gave him a subtle smile filled with humility and relief, 'Yes, you're three o'clock is here sir.'

For a moment he didn't move, watching her with an unfathomable familiarity, only slightly aware of emotional state, his hand faltering from door handle and he turned to her as if seeing her for the first time. And yet, he'd seen her so many times, over two years, this outfit she was wearing wasn't even new. It hit her that he could read subtle signs of distress from her because of their proximity and silent cooperation over the course of time. They knew each other well enough to know that they could not talk about emotional matters directly. They had to be sugar coated and dipped in secrecy to make any normal kind of sense to either of them. This is why he kept her around, not because she might have resembled his wife.

'Have I told you, you look especially charming today?'

Her smile deepened gradually and she found herself nodding mutely...he had so many times, she just hadn't been listening. 'You did...'

The End


End file.
